


Second Chances

by ellispark



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Destiel Harlequin Challenge 2019, F/M, M/M, Mutual Pining, Past Castiel/Meg Masters, Past Prostitution, Serial Killers, Some soap opera shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 11:24:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20290660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellispark/pseuds/ellispark
Summary: Three years ago, Detective Dean Winchester helped Sheriff Castiel Novak catch a killer, and both men paid dearly in their pursuit of justice. Dean lost his good health; Cas lost his fiancée, Meg. They haven’t spoken since.Now, with Dean labeled as a target of yet another murderer — a murderer who appears to be hunting down recipients of Meg’s donated organs — Cas will have to put their past and his complicated feelings behind him in order to save Dean’s life.





	Second Chances

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the summary:
> 
> "Lawman with a Cause
> 
> Her life depends on his protection…  
His heart depends on her survival… 
> 
> Sheriff Egan McCall hasn’t forgiven Jordan Gentry for her role in the death of his fiancée. But when Jordan is attacked, Egan comes to her rescue and discovers a serial killer is targeting recipients of his late fiancée’s organs. Then Egan’s protective instincts—and long-buried feelings—kick in. Wearing a badge means his priority is stopping a murderer and safeguarding a target. If only he could also ignore the sizzling attraction between them…"
> 
> ...this is the kind of over-dramatic shit I live for.

**June 30**

The last time Cas Novak was in a hospital, he watched his fiancée die.

He remembers the whir of the machines, the shouts of the nurses, the press of the doctor’s hand against his chest as he repeatedly said, “Mr. Novak, please step back. You’re not allowed back here. Mr. Novak...”

That was three years ago.

He leans against the doorway of a double room, one floor and one hallway removed from the ER, and he watches the rhythmic pulse of the heart monitor above Dean Winchester’s bed. It peaks and plateaus with a reassuring steadiness, much like the rise and fall of Dean’s chest as he sleeps, unaware he’s being watched.

The doctor, a different one this time, comes up behind Cas.

“We were worried about his heart failing,” she says, brushing her long, curly blonde hair behind her ear. Her nametag says J. Moore, MD. He knows who she is, though they’ve never met, but he’s not sure she knows him. “After all he’s been through...” She shakes her head a little and smiles at him. “So sorry, I’ve forgotten my manners.” She holds her hand out, and he shakes it perfunctorily. “Dr. Jessica Moore. I’m actually over in neurology, but Dean is my brother-in-law, so I’ve been monitoring him on the side.”

“Sheriff Cas Novak,” Cas says.

“Oh, I know,” she says, but she smiles again, so he wonders what she really knows. “You’re the one who saved his life.”

Well. He shrugs. “I happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

“I don’t know about that. Dean’s brother and I are so grate—”

“Actually, I was hoping to speak with the attending on Dean’s case?” Cas interrupts rather rudely. He’s tired of hearing false tales of his own heroism. He just wants to do his job.

Jessica winces a little. “Afraid you just missed him,” she says, a note of false cheer in her voice. “But Dean should be awake soon if you’d like to stick around and say hello? I’m sure he’d appreciate it.”

_I’m sure he would not_, Cas wants to say. He doesn’t.

“I’m afraid I need to get back to the office. Is there a number I could call to reach Doctor—?”

“Harris,” Jessica provides. Cas ignores the way her smile has completely disappeared. “I can get it for you; hang on a second—”

“Cas?”

So much for sneaking out of the room unseen. Cas and Jessica turn at the sound of Dean’s voice, weak and a little scratchy. He’s pushed himself up on his elbows on the bed, eyes on the door. Cas can’t help but grimace at the dark bruises discoloring Dean’s cheekbone and right eye. He took quite the beating.

“What, you rescue a guy from a mugging and then leave without saving goodbye?” Dean asks.

It doesn’t sound like an accusation, but it probably is. It is fair. Cas did walk away without saying goodbye the last time they were in this position.

In the ensuing silence Cas can hear everything outside of the room — the bustle of nurses and doctors in the hall, the TV next door playing a telenovela, the janitor singing off key as he mops. Everything else seems so loud compared to the quiet in the gaping space between him and Dean. Dean stares at him, and Cas stares back. This was bound to be painful, but Cas didn’t expect it to be so _awkward_.

“Well,” Jessica says, confused by the vibe in the room. “I’ll, uh— I’ll leave you two to talk. Sheriff, I’ll be sure to have Dr. Harris give you a call.”

“Thank you.” Cas doesn’t take his eyes off Dean. He barely notices Jessica leaving the room.

“Long time,” Dean says once they’re alone.

“Yes. Three years.” It comes out stiff and stilted. He can’t help himself. To say they parted on poor terms would be putting it beyond mildly.

Dean’s face softens a bit. “I’m sorry. You didn’t have to come see me in here. I—”

“Let’s not, please.” Cas can't stand to think about what happened the last time they were in this hospital. He walks closer to the bed, and Dean struggles to sit up further. “Since you’re awake, we might as well get this over with. Are you prepared to give a statement?”

Dean blanches. “Seriously, man? That’s it? ‘Are you prepared to give a statement?’”

Cas chooses to ignore Dean’s incredibly inaccurate imitation of his voice. “Dean, you were mugged two blocks from my office. I need to know what happened.”

“You know I wasn’t mugged,” Dean says in a fierce whisper, glancing toward the open door. “You _know_ it.”

“If this is about your conspiracy theory—”

“Cas,” Dean says, “goddamn it!” He lowers his voice again, clenching a fist in his blankets. “It’s not a conspiracy theory. I told you I was being followed. I told you—”

“You did,” Cas admits, “and I’m sorry I ignored your concerns.”

“—I told you,” Dean continues over him, “it’s the fucking Convert.”

Cas feels the clench in his chest at the name, the knee jerk fear response.

“Don’t say that.”

They glare at each other. Dean’s cheeks are reddening with a mix of anger and exasperation, and if he weren’t so upset himself Cas might stop to ponder how much he misses every familiar expression of Dean’s. His best friend. The man he once loved so much, to the detriment of everyone around him.

But he is angry. Meg is dead. Dean is partially to blame. Every second spent missing Dean is a slap in the face to her memory.

“It’s not the Convert,” Cas says, voice low and dangerous. “Spence is dead.”

Dean’s chest heaves. “Look in my jacket pocket, Cas.”

“What?”

“Just look!”

Dean’s clothes are folded neatly on the room’s solitary chair. Jeans, a t-shirt Cas doesn’t recognize, and the brown leather jacket he does. Dean loves that jacket, his father’s — he was wearing it the first night they met, though it didn’t fit his scrawny form then.

Cas picks up the jacket and reaches into the right pocket. His fingers brush against car keys — likely to Dean’s beloved Chevy Impala — and something else, something made of thick, cardstock paper. He pulls it out.

It’s a small, card-sized drawing of a man with dark hair looking down pensively at a cross he holds in his hands. There’s a halo of light gold around his head. The style of the drawing is old, a mosaic — like it’s on the wall of a church somewhere. Cas flips the card over.

**_Saint Epipodius_ **

It’s as if he’s been drenched in freezing water. Cas looks up at Dean, who nods, face grim.

“I looked it up already. Patron saint of the betrayed and the tortured.” Dean can’t quite hide the shake in his voice. “I got it this morning. That’s why I called you so many times today.”

Cas flips the card over in his hands, then back over again. The one detail they never told the press, the one thing they were so careful to hide — the saint cards. No one knows about the cards except those who worked closely on the Convert case — Cas, Dean, Meg, and a few trusted others.

“This shouldn’t be possible,” Cas says, dumbfounded. His brain is skipping, searching for the right track to land on. How could this happen? How could Dean be marked? The Convert is Tom Spence. Cas shot him in the heart three years ago. Meg _died_ to bring him to justice.

“I told you,” Dean says again, “there was more than one. And now they’re back.”

**Three Years Ago**

Cas has never seen Meg and Dean get along so well. He wishes he could enjoy this moment more, but it’s impossible when the thing that’s bonded them is a dangerous, _stupid _idea.

“It could work, Clarence.” Meg is practically skipping as she paces Cas’s office. “We have no doubt this fucker is watching our progress on this case. He knows exactly who I am. He’ll want me. As soon as he sees the ad, he'll come running.”

“He’s smart enough to recognize an obvious trap!” Cas snaps. He can’t believe either of them are even considering this. His two best detectives, the two people he loves and trusts most, and they’re both complete idiots.

“_But_,” Dean adds from his spot in the corner, “he’s just arrogant enough to think he could walk into a trap and get out unscathed. You know how close he likes to play it, Cas. The last kill — the classifieds? He’s taunting us. He thinks he can’t be caught.”

Dean’s not wrong. This killer likes to toy with them, and he’s been toying with them for just over a year now, killing on a fixed schedule. He’s given them a body on the 7th of every other month, every victim murdered using some symbol of Catholicism — beaten with a metal cross, strangled with rosary beads, drowned in holy water — and topped with saint card. The Convert, the press calls him. Cas hates the name.

His last kill he advertised ahead of time in a coded classified ad — he told them the victim’s apartment building, gave them the date of her murder. They had the building surrounded on the 7th of that month, and yet Mathias Keller, a former sister, was found hanging from her ceiling fan the next day, a habit strung around her neck. Her saint card was **_Saint Scholastica_**. Obvious, and yet they completely missed it. He got in and out without a single cop spotting him.

The one good thing about that murder, if anything good can come out of such a brutal act, is the break in the case it provided. Sister Mathias formerly served at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow, a now abandoned church on the outskirts of the city. Dean and Meg did some digging and discovered every victim had a connection, however tenuous, to the church — one was an alter boy, one was the daughter of a former priest, one made the stained glass used in the chapel. All six victims, and this was their only connecting factor.

Meg and Dean think if they try to set up a meeting with him there, the Convert will jump at the chance to attempt to outsmart them once more. Cas thinks it's a good way to get someone killed.

“He also got past all three of us and six other cops last time,” Cas says, voice rising, “and murdered a woman with us in the building! I will not let you compromise your safety like this.”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do,” Meg snaps right back, getting up in his face. She’s a good six inches shorter than him, and she stands on her toes to keep their eyes close to level. It’s something she also does whenever she wants to kiss Cas, but it’s far from affectionate now. “This ring—” She shoves her hand in between them, the diamond catching the light and reflecting it back “— does not give you any form of ownership, Castiel.”

“I don’t think I _own_ you,” he says, not backing down, “but I am your boss, and I won’t approve this!”

“People are dying, and we could stop it!” she shouts, and then Dean steps in, pushing them both back.

Dean looks between them a moment before dropping his hand from Meg’s shoulder. The hand on Cas’s chest stays there, and Cas tries not to get distracted by it.

“Okay,” Dean says, taking a deep breath. “Meg, Cas, separate corners maybe?”

“You talk to him,” Meg snarls, gathering her purse and shoving it under her arm. “He _always_ listens to _you_.”

Then she’s gone, the door slamming behind her. The men watch through the windows as Meg stomps through the bullpen, the curious eyes of her fellow officers following her out the precinct door.

“Ah, great,” Dean says with a forced chuckle, dropping his hand from Cas’s chest. Cas unconsciously reaches up to touch the spot where it was. “Now look what you’ve done. You’ve made her hate me again.”

“She doesn’t hate you,” Cas responds by rote, although he knows it’s not true. Meg’s always been jealous of his friendship with Dean. He knows exactly why, but it’s not like he can explain it to Dean.

“Well, we were getting along okay until someone shot our best plan to pieces.” Dean leans back against Cas's desk and crosses his arms over his chest. “Look, I know why you don’t want her to do this—”

“I don’t think you do.”

Dean raises his eyebrows. “I was just gonna say that’s why I’m going to be the bait instead.”

_“Like hell,” _Cas says, with an even greater ferocity than when Meg suggested it. It’s like he can’t stop himself, even when Dean seems startled by his response. “The idea of using you as bait is no more palatable to me, Dean. I can’t lose you.”

Dean rubs a hand over his mouth, a telltale sign of high emotion he doesn’t know how to convey. Cas crosses his arms over his chest, trying to put up a façade of anger instead of worry, but he knows he’s a beat too late.

“Cas,” Dean says, then purses his lips together. “I’ll be safe. Meg and I have thought this out, man. We’ll have people in position everywhere, and I can handle myself if it comes to a fight.” Cas cringes, and Dean sighs. “Look, I know it’s hard not to make this personal — he’s mocked us and killed right under our noses, it _is _personal. And you feel like you’re responsible, I get it. So do we.”

Dean gestures to the picture of Meg on Cas’s desk. She put it there herself, insisting Cas needed to “act like you’re excited to marry me.” Cas feels guilt every time he looks at it, and somehow it’s worse when Dean is the one calling it to his attention.

“It’s our fucking case, and this guy has been running circles around me and Meg for a year. Now we have a chance, a real chance, to get him, and I— I’m just trying to do my job. Save some lives, since someone—” He looks at Cas pointedly. “—once saved mine.”

The reminder takes Cas aback, as it always does. How they met is not something they talk about, not a story anyone other than the two of them knows. Dean is ashamed of it, and Cas— Cas just doesn’t want to hurt him by bringing it up. For Dean to mention it on his own is a sign of just how badly he wants to jump into the fire. Dean’s always been self-sacrificing to the point of martyrdom, because, Cas suspects, deep down he feels like his lot in life was to be rotting in a ditch somewhere. Cas loves most things about Dean, to the anger of his fiancée and many of their exasperated mutual friends, but he doesn’t love Dean’s bone-deep self-loathing.

“Don’t be an idiot,” he says, getting into Dean’s personal space. “You don’t owe your own life, and that’s what this will likely cost you. We’ll find another way.”

“No,” Dean says simply, not taking his eyes off Cas’s. Stubborn, self-righteous — these are qualities Cas can appreciate until they’re used against him. “This is the best chance we have, and you know it.”

He pushes past Cas and heads for the door. Cas should stop him — Dean is technically his employee, after all — but he lets him go. He takes a minute to gather himself, waiting for Dean to leave the building before he gathers his things and follows suit. The bullpen is buzzing when walks out, but the voices drop as soon as they see him.

He's almost to the door when Garth, a goofy deputy, says, “Fighting with the wife and mistress, eh, Sheriff?”

Cas stops short.

Garth is new, and he probably doesn’t mean anything by the comment. To him, it’s a stupid joke to lighten the tension. He doesn’t know what everyone else in the damn room knows, what they’ve all deduced by years of observation, which is that Cas would have chosen Dean had he ever thought Dean would choose him.

He turns slowly, and Detective Benny Lafitte says, “Fuck, Garth. You moron.”

“Deputy.” Cas looms over Garth’s desk, and he shrinks back, eyes wide. “If you ever disrespect myself or detectives Masters and Winchester like that again, you’ll be looking for a transfer. Is that clear?”

“Yes sir.” Garth’s voice shakes.

“Good.” He’s being an asshole, and he knows it. He just doesn’t care right now. There’s a serial killer on the loose, and Dean wants to use himself as bait, and Cas is tired of being in love with the wrong person. “Get back to work.”

He can hear the buzz start back before the door swings shut, but he doesn’t care. He’s got to find another way to catch a killer.

**July 5**

Gentrification changes a lot of things about a city. Old warehouses turn into furniture stores, homeless camps into parks, bars into coffee shops. That’s what happened to Cas’s favorite bar, The Roadhouse — it’s now Bricks and Beans, a bakery slash coffee shop rife with hipsters and their laptops and suspenders.

Cas claims a spot on a couch in the back and tries to drink his cold brew. Too much milk, not enough coffee. He sets it down just as Dean walks in, his eyes scanning the room for Cas.

Dean insisted they meet here after his recovery period. It used to be their spot, back when it was still The Roadhouse and served beer instead of wine. Cas hasn’t been here since he heard the bar closed over two years ago, but Dean is nostalgic. They spent one too many nights in this building talking cases over drinks for either of them to really let it go.

“Hey.” Dean sits right next to him.

Cas tries not to look at his fading bruises or the odd shape of his shirt over his heart monitor. Three years, and the idea of Dean spending his life taking pills and worrying about borrowed time still makes his own heart sink. He can pretend to be done with Dean all he wants, but even Cas knows by now all that anger is just a convenient cover.

Dean catches him staring and shrugs. “It’s just for the first week I’m out of the hospital. They want to make sure it’s still going strong.”

“Right.” Cas clears his throat. Meg’s heart in Dean’s chest. That’s not something he’ll ever get used to. “I, uh— I’m sorry I couldn’t get a protective detail approved. The commisioners are refusing to see the obvious here. They said it would be a poor use of police resources.”

Dean leans back, opening up his laptop. He keeps his eyes on it as he says, “Well, they've always been fucking idiots. You remember how long it took them to admit the Convert was a serial killer and those cases weren't just a bunch of unrelated murders.”

“True,” Cas admits. “Benny and some of the deputies have been driving by your place, just in case. All on their own time.”

Dean looks up and smiles. “Yeah, he told me. They’re good people. I do have a pretty great alarm system, though, Cas. And I’m not convinced I was a real target.”

“You were practically beaten unconscious,” Cas says, incredulous.

He remembers the day all too well — Dean called him three times that morning, and he refused to answer. The last voicemail, left minutes before Dean was attacked on the street in broad daylight, was frantic and so unlike him. “I’m being followed,” he’d said, voice low. “I’m on my way to your office, and there’s someone tracking me. Short, thin, in all black. I can’t see their face. I don’t think they’ll try anything this close to the precinct, but Cas— You need to listen to my other messages.”

Cas had listened to them, all ten or so, starting weeks before — Dean thought the Convert had a follower, and they were starting their killing spree. Cas dismissed him out of hand, and the guilt still sits heavy in his stomach.

Yes, he came to find Dean after that last call, but he was almost too late. The attacker ran when he saw Cas, and he chose staying with Dean over giving chase. He doesn’t regret that decision, just everything else that led up to it.

“It was a warning, maybe,” Dean murmurs.

He’s pulling up news stories of cases he already sent Cas via email, cases Cas did his best to ignore. They’re murders from across the state with the same M.O. — throats slit, bodies posed as if they’re hanging on an invisible cross, saint cards on their chests. Those details aren’t in the news, but Dean has a lot of friends in law enforcement, both state and federal. Cas knows his information is legitimate.

“They’ve clearly been watching me. I’ve been visiting the departments working these cases, and they know I know—” Dean sighs and waves a hand. “_Something_. I’ve made the connection, at least. I tried to tell some of the other sheriffs and even the Rangers, but you know how law enforcement is about sharing shit across jurisdictions. No one tells anyone else anything until it’s too late.” He smiles, but it looks more like a grimace. “And you know how they are about denying serial killers and not believing washed up detectives.”

“You’re not washed up,” Cas says automatically. Dean shakes his head.

“Thanks, man, but I am. I mean, I do data entry for a living now. I spend half my time at doctor’s appointments. I’m bored out of my fucking mind and looking for trouble. If I were them, I’d doubt me.” He holds Cas’s gaze intently, and Cas wants to shrink away, but he can’t. “If I were you, I’d doubt me, too, Cas.”

“I shouldn’t have. It wasn’t...” He clears his throat uncomfortably. “It wasn’t that I didn’t believe you. It’s that I didn’t want to.”

“Yeah,” Dean says softly. “I didn’t want to, either. This case ruined our fucking lives.” He looks at his hands. “Cas, I’m sorry—”

“You don’t have to apologize. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Well, you sure blamed me then.”

“That was unfair of me.” Cas thinks of how he felt when Meg died — despondent, vengeful, helpless, guilty. So, so guilty. She died angry at him, disappointed in him. She died because he couldn’t protect her. She died a painful death, and she died knowing her fiancée loved someone else. “I left angry with grief, and then I let it fester and fester until—” _Until I almost lost you._

Dean’s eyebrows raise, waiting for the completed thought.

“Until I saw you on the ground with that _psycho_ standing over you, and all I could think was ‘I’m too late.’ Again.”

Dean considers that, says, “You weren’t super friendly at the hospital.”

“No,” Cas admits. “I was still upset by your voicemails, and being there on top of it didn’t help. She died a floor down from where you were staying, and you were trying to tell me there was another murderer just like hers out there. I handled it poorly.”

Dean hums in response and blows on his coffee. Cas watches him in slight awe — the Dean he remembers was just as prone to overblown tempers as he himself often is, and yet Dean is taking the end of their estrangement remarkably well.

“Aren’t you upset with me? Aren’t you going to tell me how stupid I’ve been?”

Dean lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “I could have reached out sooner, too. I’ve been pissed, sure, but I know I fucked up with Meg.”

“I told you, it was an accident.”

“Anyway,” Dean says, waving him off, “getting a second chance at life has given me a new perspective. I always told myself that if you did ever speak to me again, I’d tell you...”

His voice fades and he frowns. _What?! _Cas wants to shake him. _What would you tell me?_

“I wouldn’t waste time being a jackass, I guess. I’d tell you I missed you and hope for the best.”

It’s not exactly what he wanted to hear, but Cas will take what he can get. “I missed you, too.”

“Well, to us, then.” Dean raises his mug and Cas follows suit, huffing a laugh. “A couple of dumbasses.”

“Cheers.”

They down the dregs of their drinks like they used to down shots in this same place, and Dean grimaces when he pulls his mug away from his lips.

“Ugh. I hate the coffee here. God, do you remember the first time we came to The Roadhouse together?”

They should be talking about the case — three bodies across the state now, a possible mark on Dean, and the saint cards connecting the two distinctly different killers — but being together like this again is a novelty, and Cas doesn’t want to think about murder when he just got his best friend back.

“Right.” He remembers Dean, cocky and beautiful and reckless, dragging Cas down the dark street outside, pulling him into the Roadhouse and directing them to the bar with his hand on the small of Cas’s back. Dean had just received his acceptance letter to that fall’s police academy class, and Cas had just figured out he was in love with his young friend and was doing his damndest to hide it. “I had half a dozen shots, I believe.”

“And you still didn’t get drunk.” Dean shakes his head with a grin. “You have the metabolism of a god, man.”

“Bacchus, maybe.” Cas looks at his empty cup to avoid Dean’s eyes. He tried to get drunk that night, to drown out the butterflies in his stomach that have lived there ever since.

“I was so fucking excited.” Dean's eyes glaze over, somewhere back in time and far away from here. “That was maybe the first time I actually thought I had my whole life ahead of me.”

"You still do,” Cas points out.

“Nah.” Dean shakes his head. “Fifteen years after surgery is the average for a heart transplant. Did you know that?”

Yes, Cas did know that. It’s just another straw on his back piled up on the worst night of his life. He can still hear the doctor saying, “We were able to harvest her vital organs;” still feel Sam’s arms around him as he says, “She’s gonna save, Dean, Cas.” He went to the bathroom, threw up, and then Googled “heart transplant.” The lifespan and mortality rates were the first thing he saw. Maybe that’s part of the reason why he walked out of the hospital that night and left Dean behind him. He couldn’t stand the thought of being the last one standing.

He’s such a coward.

“Cas?”

“Sorry.” He shakes his head. “It’s just, uh— It’s not easy to hear you say that.”

Dean bumps his shoulder lightly with his own. “I mean, Sam always says medicine will advance enough in the next decade to keep me alive. So if you want to look at it that way, more power to you. Me? I know I’m living on borrowed time.” He looks at the case files pulled up on his laptop. “Maybe I’ll get less than I thought. But hell, that’s the story of my fucking life.”

“We should talk about the cases,” Cas says, desperate to get off the subject.

Dean thankfully obliges him. Cas half-listens as he starts connecting the dots between each of the three murder victims and his own attack, laying out the tell-tale Catholic symbolism and the timeline, theorizing on which of Tom Spence’s known associates is the most likely culprit. Cas knows this deserves his full attention, but Dean’s just thrown in his face the thing he’s been running from for three years.

_I’m going to lose him_, Cas thinks, and he’s not worrying about a killer, but about all the time he wasted on anger when he knew Dean had a ticking clock hanging over his head. _I’m going to lose him again._

**Fifteen Years Ago**

Sometimes, Cas hates his job.

Like now, for instance.

“I didn’t do anything wrong.” The kid in the backseat of his patrol car is slumped over, his head lolling against the cold window. “You don’t have anything on me.”

“You tried to solicit me for sex,” Cas says, incredulous. “Prostitution is illegal, son.”  
  
“Don’t call me son,” the kid all but snarls. “You’re what, like twenty?”

“I’m twenty-four.” Cas doesn’t know why he’s playing this game, but he’s been wrong-footed ever since he got this call. An “anonymous citizen” dials 911 to report a hooker on Marks Street like some good Samaritan? Yeah, right. Cas can see the bruise along the kid’s cheek. It was probably a pissed off john looking to teach him a lesson. And, as a cop, he’s got to play right into that asshole’s hands. Prostitution _is _illegal. Maybe he thinks it shouldn’t be, maybe he has more respect for sex workers than anyone else in his precinct, but Cas still took the call, and he has to follow the law. It’s his job.

“Oh, so _experienced_, officer. Sure you wouldn’t want to put some of that to good use? Or are you too old and decrepit?

He honestly can’t tell if he’s being flirted with or just being insulted.

“You can’t sleep with me to get out of this,” Cas says. He stares at his radio. He’s tried to call in twice already, and the dispatchers are ignoring him in favor of more pressing emergencies. “I’m sorry if most of your experience is with crooked cops, but that’s not me.”

“Everyone is crooked.” The kid is now sprawling across the backseat, his legs splayed out as far they can in the cramped squad car, his brown leather jacket open to reveal he is indeed shirtless. It’s a cold night, too. “Everyone has a price.”

“That’s an awfully depressing sentiment.”

“I’m a teenage hooker, _should _I be all sunshine and rainbows?”

A more than fair point. Cas turns in his seat to get a better look at this so-called criminal.

“What’s your name?”

The kid stiffens. He didn’t have an ID on him when Cas made the collar, and Cas can tell the second he decides to lie.

“Robert Page.”

“You just combined two members of Led Zeppelin.” Cas rolls his eyes. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”

This gets the kid’s attention. He swings his feet around to sit up properly.

“Fine. Dean. That’s all you get.”

“Until I run your fingerprints at the precinct, sure, Dean.”

Dean glares at him. He has nice eyes, Cas notices. Green.

“You’re really gonna bust me for this, man? I told you, I haven’t even hooked anybody tonight.”

“And I told you, solicitation is enough.”

“Fuck.” Dean closes his eyes and slumps back against the seat dramatically, but not before Cas sees real fear cross his face. “This is just fucking fantastic.”

Sometimes Cas hates his job.

So sometimes he does it wrong.

“All right,” Cas says, making a judgment call after a moment of hesitation, “Dean, I’m going to make you a deal.”

Intrigued, Dean cracks one eye open. “Knew it. So, what’s your poison? Missionary, right?”

“What? God, no.” Cas is so offended it comes out as disgust. “No, I— Dean, do you have any priors?”

Dean’s other eye opens and he sits up straighter. “One. Just for stealing some bread and peanut butter in Nebraska like three years ago.”

The casual admission distracts Cas. “Why would you steal bread and peanut butter?”

“Uh, my little brother was hungry?”

Cas cocks his head to the side, considering. “Does your being out here tonight have anything to do with your little brother being hungry?”

Dean squares his jaw and looks away, and Cas knows the answer to his question.

“Dean. Where are your parents?”

“I’m eighteen, so it doesn’t fucking matter.” He refuses to look at Cas. “Are you gonna arrest me or what?”

“No.” That gets Dean’s attention. His eyes dart to Cas, surprised. “I’m going to help you. If your only prior was as a minor, I don’t see any point in ruining your life over this. I’m going to let you go. But first, I would like to know — do you want to be doing this?”

It’s a question Dean obviously hasn’t considered before. He opens his mouth and then closes it, as if the answer is stumping him.

“It’s okay to say yes,” Cas adds hastily, “If you’re actually eighteen, that is. Although I’m going to suggest heading for Nevada if that’s your plan. I’d hate to have to arrest you. Again.”

“Is it okay to say no?”

And Cas’s heart breaks for Dean. “Yes, of course. Do you have any place to go? Anywhere at all? I could take you there. Your brother, too.”

Dean licks his lips, a nervous tick Cas could pick out from a mile away. “How am I supposed to trust you?”

It’s a good question. Cas doubts Dean has ever had anyone to truly trust in his life — not if he’s eighteen and on the streets, trying anything to make money to act as a parent to his younger brother. And he truly doubts Dean has ever had reason to look at police in a fond light.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I could let you out, and that’s that.”

Dean processes this, brow furrowed and eyes on his hands, twisting in his lap.

Then he says, “Sam — that’s my brother — and I are trying to find our uncle. I think he’s here in the city somewhere, but my dad stopped talking to him before he died and his name’s not in the phonebook because he’s a paranoid bastard and I’m out of money and I don’t even know where to look.”

It’s like the floodgates have opened and Dean can’t stop babbling, an edge of panic in his voice.

“I’m not actually a hooker; I've never even done this before. I just thought it might be a good way to make quick cash. I mean, truckers have tried shit with me before, right? I know some guys are into that, and I decided if I could get one to take the bait maybe I’d have enough for us to stop sleeping in the car for one fucking night, but then this asshole came up to me and tried to get me to let him have a fuck for $20, and I can’t do that man, that’s fucking _degrading_ and—” Dean finally takes a breath. “So this son of a bitch hits me, and then he called you on me. And... I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.”

“You could use a friend?” Cas suggests, though he too is thrown by Dean’s outburst of honesty.

Dean laughs, a strangled sound. “I could use some food, is what I could use.”

Cas turns the car on.

“All right,” he says. “Let’s start there.”

**July 6**

Cas has just hung up the phone after an unproductive call with the sheriff of Jack County when his doorbell rings. He glances at the live video feed of his front stoop. It’s Dean, still wearing that leather jacket in the July heat, the bruises on his face faded to a mottled greenish tint. He still looks awful. Cas’s chest aches at the sight of him.

When he opens the door, Dean pushes past with a quick “Hey,” but he stops in his tracks as soon as he reaches the living room.

“Dude,” he says, “the last time I was here, this place looked like a friggin’ museum.”

He’s not wrong — following his whirlwind courtship with Meg (less than six months from first date to engagement, and he knew even then he was running from something), Cas cleared out his bachelor pad and replaced every faded, worn thing he owned with Meg’s sleek, modern furniture. She liked clean lines and open spaces. The first time Dean came over after she moved in, he’d said “Wow, sterile” with complete disdain.

After Meg died, Cas boxed up all of her things and put them in storage. His sister Anna helped redecorate — mostly leather furniture and muted forest shades — during his mourning period. Now the living room is covered in newspaper clippings and notes.

Dean walks over to the wooden coffee table and picks up a steno pad. Cas scribbled notes from his call with Sheriff Gordon Walker on the it — _not enough evidence to connect, hasn’t spoken with Mills or Harvelle, won’t release saint card info, copy cat? _He’s drawn angry scribbles after the last notation.

“How could it be a copy cat when we never released the cards?” Dean asks, mostly to himself.

“Walker is of the opinion that the cases are dissimilar enough for the saint card to be a coincidence. But even though I told him I could confirm the Travis and Jack county cases were of the same M.O. as his, he did stump me on one thing.” Cas stands behind the couch, bracing himself against it. “He asked if they had missing organs.”

“What?” Dean screws his face up. “My contact never mentioned anything about missing organs.”

“Your contact being Victor,” Cas says knowingly. Victor Henriksen is a former Ranger who now works for the FBI, and he once helped them on the Convert case. Cas doesn’t doubt he’s pushing the connection theory in Washington for them. He’s a good man, and a good detective. “He may not have known. Ellen Harvelle up in Jack was mum on details about their murder, and I don’t blame her. It’s the first one in her county in five years, and the victim was a teacher with no discernable criminal connections. She doesn’t want to think serial killer, and neither does Walker — Dallas has enough problems to worry about. Mills was more susceptible to the idea, but she wasn’t hooked until I told her what Walker said about his victim missing his liver. Hers was missing his lungs.”

“Yuck.” Dean’s nose wrinkles. “Do you think the Jack County case was missing something, too?”

“I don’t know. I have a name.” He points to a sticky note next to his laptop, and Dean sits down to look it up. _Amanda Heckerling. _

“Hmm,” Dean murmurs, pleased with himself. He’s discovered an obituary. “Amanda Heckerling of Jacksboro, Texas. Teacher, survived by her third grade class, parents, grandparents, siblings, fiancé.” He cringes. “Poor bastard. Loved reading, riding horses, two-stepping — typical Texas girl.”

His eyes track toward the end of the page, silently reading along, and his face pales.

“What?” Cas leans over the couch, his breath ghosting over Dean’s neck as he reads the line that stopped his friend cold. He feels his heart begin to race and his palms begin to sweat.

“No,” he says, because he can’t stand to think it, but everything is beginning to fall into place.

“_Amanda was a diabetic, and her life was saved three years ago by a generous kidney donation. She was inspired to become an organ donor herself, in thanks to the anonymous woman who donated to her.”_

Meg’s organs — kidney, liver, lungs, heart, as well as her corneas — were sent out across the state immediately after her death. Cas saw them carried away in red ice chests with doctors, nurses, and paramedics following in their wake. One went one floor up, to cardiac surgery where Dean was waiting. He was a match, and it was a miracle. No waiting lists, because he wouldn’t survive the night without it. Cas never cared to know who got the rest after that. Dean would live, and Meg had died, and that was all that mattered. Her life scattered to the wind, and he never asked where the rest of her went. She's part of five people at least. And three of them are dead.

Cas looks at Dean, and Dean’s eyes are already on him.

“It wasn’t a warning,” he says, and his chest, his chest with his new heart, is heaving visibly underneath his plaid shirt. “Or if it was, it’s not gonna stop there.”

“Who—” Cas barely manages, because he never even got their names until after they died. Amanda Heckerling, Jim Sterns, Caleb Andrews. They all had pieces of her, and he never even knew. But the killer did. “The betrayal card...”

“I didn’t know what it meant,” Dean says, and his fingers are white were they grip the laptop around its edges. “I’ve been racking my brain, and I couldn’t figure it out. But Meg...”

“She told you about our fight.”

He turns around and slides down the couch, keeping his knees to his chest and looking blankly at the wall in front of him. There used to be a picture there — a large black and white photocopy of his and Meg’s engagement shot, her arms around his neck and the ring glinting in the sunlight. Their noses were pressed together, smiling like they only had eyes for one another. It was never true, but damn did Cas want it to be.

Meg took the photo down the night she died, after their argument, and later Cas put it in storage with everything of hers he couldn’t bear to give away and couldn’t bear to look at, either.

“She told me she was calling it off.” Dean sounds almost robotic. Empty. “That night. She told me to take care of you, and she wouldn’t say why. But I knew.”

“How did _they_ know?” Cas grasps at the side of his head. The answer is obvious. “How could they know, unless they’re one of us?”

“They know the Convert case.” Dean’s gone cold. Far away. “They know about the saint cards. They know about Meg — her death, the donations, everything. They know about us.”

“There is no us_._” He says it weakly, because it’s a lie. To Cas, there will always be an _us_, no matter how he runs from it.

“Cas.” Finally a crack in his voice. Cas can’t stand being on the other side of the couch, hidden from Dean, but he doesn’t dare turn around to look at his face. “The whole precinct knew I was in love with you. Meg knew, too.”

When Cas first met Dean, he sensed he was standing on the edge of a precipice in his career. He’d spent the past two years as a beat cop, writing traffic tickets and not much else. Dean was the first time he really used his own judgment — went one way when all of his training told him to go the opposite. He let Dean go, and it felt good. It felt right. It felt like justice, for once. That night alone kept Cas’s faith in his work.

And he kept letting Dean go. When Cas realized he was in love with Dean, now a grown man and the most decent person he’d ever met, he kept a respectful distance. He fostered friendship and nothing more. That night at The Roadhouse, the night after Dean was inducted into Cas’s precinct — he can’t even think of that night without his heart twisting in his chest. He let Dean go, again and again, and it never felt good after the first time.

Everything in him, the years of bitterness and resentment and supposedly unrequited longing, tells him to let this go, too. He’s heard what he would have killed to hear, had it been said three years ago, or six, or ten, and his head is telling him _no_. There’s a serial killer on the loose, Meg’s ghost still haunts him, and Dean is slowly dying. To turn around now would be asking for heartbreak like he’s never felt before.

But like he did the first time he met Dean, Cas ignores his head. He goes with his heart instead.

He pushes himself up on his knees and he turns around to face Dean, who’s looking at him with only his eyes visible over the back of the couch.

“You what?” Cas asks, because he needs to know for sure.

“I loved you,” Dean says, mumbling into the leather. His eyes are wet. “Still do, I guess.”

“For how long?” The words come out garbled, barely making it out of his throat.

“Since I was eighteen and you picked me up off that street corner. It was more of a crush then. I, uh, I probably started to really love you when I got back from college and we started hanging out. When you were helping me with my application to the academy. I finally felt like maybe I had my shit together enough, maybe I was old enough, but...” Dean leans back, and Cas can see his full face. His cheeks are heated. “Look, Cas, I’m sorry. I wasn’t going to tell you. I know you don’t feel the same way.”

“But I do.” Three simple words, but they aren’t the ones Dean needs right now. His eyes widen as Cas says, “I love you. Dean. I’ve loved you since the night you found out you got into the academy.” Dean eyes are on his face, teary and disbelieving. “You were so happy, so full of life, and I wanted everything about you. I wanted you like that forever. I wanted that aimed at me forever.”

“Cas—” Dean clears his throat, struggling for words. “What about that night at The Roadhouse? What about Meg? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought you didn’t feel the same,” Cas says weakly. “At The Roadhouse, we were drunk and I didn’t want you to think you’d made a mistake. After the way we met, I didn't want to presume. And then Meg was— Meg was a whirlwind. An escape. It was wrong of me, but— I don’t know how else to describe it.”

“Fucking hell.” Dean says, and then he’s vaulting over the couch, landing with grace next to Cas on the floor. He takes Cas’s face in his hands, holding him close. Cas hasn’t realized until this moment how much he’s missed this, the way Dean looks at him like he can conjure greatness out of him. “You idiot.”

Dean kisses him, for only the second time in their fifteen-year friendship. His lips are soft, insistent as they were the first time, but this time there’s no alcohol on his breath or tremors in his hands as they stroke Cas’s face. Cas reaches for Dean, and he is held in return.

Finally.

**Ten Years Ago**

Watching Sheriff Rufus Turner pin Dean’s badge on his chest is one of the proudest moments of Cas’s life.

He stands between Bobby Singer and Sam Winchester, and they rub shoulders as they whoop and clap for Dean, who shoots a cheeky grin their way before bounding off the stage. Cas watches him long after the crowd has turned their attention to the next recruit, following his dark blond head of hair as Dean makes his way back to his seat with the other newly initiated. He’s grinning broadly still, a faint blush from the heat and attention light upon his cheekbones. Benny Lafitte nudges his shoulder and slaps him on the back, and Dean laughs, head down to his chest.

Cas knows he never imagined this would be his life. Five years ago, who would have thought they’d end up here?

And who would have thought Cas would end up following Dean into The Roadhouse, dragged behind his friend, Dean’s hand in his. Dean isn’t thinking anything of it, to be sure — they’ve been close since the day Cas helped the Winchesters find their Uncle Bobby, and Cas knows Dean sees him as an older brother-type figure.

But Cas feels the sweat of his palm pressed to Dean’s and he does his best to control the urge to squeeze Dean’s hand, to intertwine their fingers together. His love for Dean has been burning for the past year, and in this moment, as Dean looks back and says something lost to the noise of the barfly crowd, a wild smile on his face, it threatens to consume Cas alive.

Dean pushes through the people, pulling Cas within his orbit until they’re at their spot, a high-top in the back corner next to the jukebox.

“I’m gonna put some Seger on, then I’ve got first round, okay?” Dean leaves without waiting for an answer, and Cas watches him go, heart in his throat.

“You could just tell him,” Bobby said once, a few months ago. He’d caught Cas’s eyes following Dean at a family barbeque. The old man is a sharp one. He would have made a fantastic detective. “You're the best friend he's ever had, Cas. What’s the worst that could happen if he knew?”

“Don’t say anything,” Cas had begged, because Dean loving him as a friend is far from Dean returning his affection. Cas remembers all too well how they met, the position Dean was in — vulnerable, alone, scared. He’s Dean’s protector, not his lover. He never will be his lover. “I don’t want to lose him.”

Bobby didn’t say anything, but as Cas watches Dean dance his way back to their table, hips swinging comically as he mouths the words to “Her Strut,” he almost wishes he had. Almost.

“Come on, Cas.” Dean sets their beers down on the greasy table. “Why so sour all of a sudden?” His eyes alight with mischief. “Are you worried I’m going to steal all your thunder now that we’re working together?”

“Never,” Cas says, and he manages to crack a smile. It’s easy to bring one out for Dean. He brings out the best in Cas, the less serious side so few people see. “Experience before beauty.”

He’s testing the waters to be sure, but Dean guffaws and says, “Sure thing, old man,” and Cas’s heart sinks again.

“Not old.”

“Uh-huh, just pushing thirty.”

“Thirty isn’t old, Dean. And I’ve still got two years to go.”

Dean’s smile is so wide it crinkles the corners of his eyes. “Whatever you say, Mr. Experience-Before-Beauty. Wait— you think I’m beautiful?”

Cas starts to sputter, and Dean throws his head back and laughs. “Aha! Gotcha!” Then he winks. “Course I am.”

And he is. He always has been, but Cas used to find it easier to ignore. He’s loved Dean for years, ever since they met, but something about the way he fell into Cas’s arms when he returned from school, or their late night phone calls during his time at the academy, or the drinks they’ve shared at this bar for the past year, has changed _love_ to _in love_. Now Cas thinks about Dean’s green eyes, his devilish smile, and his freckled face all the time.

It’s getting distracting, and it will only get worse once they’re working together.

“Get it out of your system,” his brother Gabriel advised him over the phone. Easy for him to say, a world away in India. Gabe’s never met Dean, only seen pictures of him with his tanned arm looped around Cas’s neck at the beach or wearing a crooked fake beard at their annual family Christmas party. “Find someone else — a look-alike. If you can’t be straight with him — eh, get it? Straight? — then you need to go be gay with someone else for at least one sweaty, steamy night.”

Gabe is kind of an asshole.

Cas watches Dean drink, gesturing with his hands as he talks about the hell that was his last week at the academy — all-nighters, five-mile runs at five a.m., getting pepper sprayed in the face. “Still better than college,” Dean says.

When Dean came home from school last Christmas with Benny in tow, Cas, who’d just realized he was in love, felt jealousy like he’d never experienced before. Every time Dean laughed at Benny’s stupid inside jokes, or tossed a beer at him, or asked about his plans for his career, Cas felt the sting of missed attention acutely.

“You don’t have to let the big green monster get you, mon cher,” Benny told him the last night they were in town. “Dean talks about you all the goddamn time. ‘Cas did this, Cas told me that, Cas picked up this case, Cas is a fucking miracle...’”

Cas is also kind of an asshole, apparently.

He catches Benny’s eyes from across the room as Dean launches into another tale, this time about a prank his class pulled on the one coming in behind them, something to do with goose feathers and glue guns. Benny is standing with a few of the other new recruits, watching Cas and Dean. Benny raises his eyebrows, and Cas looks down at his drink. He’s still on his first, and Dean must be on his fourth at least.

“Can you believe that?” Dean asks, and Cas feels guilty he missed most of the story, lost in his own obtrusive thoughts.

“Sorry, believe what?”

“Cas,” Dean says, his voice lazy and slurred, “why’re you so damned distracted?”

Cas counts the glasses in front of Dean again. Still at four. “When did your tolerance decrease so much?”

“Since ya told me you were worried I was drinking too much, that’s when.” Dean swirls a hand around vaguely. “I cut back. A lot. A lot a lot. Haven’t had a drink since the academy started.”

“Dean.” Cas feels an undeniable warmth in his chest.

Dean shrugs. “You were right.” He smiles, toothy and guileless. “Gotta be sober to be number one in the class, right?”

“Right.” Cas clinks his glass against Dean. “Cheers to that.”

“Cheers!” Dean downs glass number five. He looks at the foam on the bottom as if he can’t believe that’s all there is left, and then pushes it aside. “You’re always pulling me down the right path, ya know? Where would I be without you?”

Dean props his chin on his hand, head lolling slightly to the side as he considers Cas, whose face is heating up under the drunken intensity of Dean’s gaze.

“You’d be okay, Dean,” he says, and he means it. “You’d have found Bobby; taken care of Sam. I know you. You always find a way, no matter how difficult your situation is.”

“Awww, Cas.” He drags Cas’s name out, long and indulgent. “Flatterer.” His face grows suddenly serious. “But for real, man — you saved my life. Did I—” Dean’s eyes go slightly crossed for a moment. “Did I ever thank you?”

“Yes,” Cas says, though he’s not sure Dean’s ever said it in so many words. He’s a proud man, and actions are more befitting of him.

“I dunno.” Dean pushes at his empty glass. The jukebox changes records from Seger to an old rock band Cas doesn’t recognize. “I should say it all the time.”

“That’s unnecessary.”

“It is, though!” Dean protests, leaning forward on the table. His face is now dangerously close to Cas’s, and yet Cas can’t seem to move back. “I can never pay you back...”

Cas opens his mouth to say something like, “No, don’t be ridiculous.” Something like, “Having your friendship has changed my life, and that’s enough.” But he doesn’t get the chance to say anything, because Dean’s tongue is in his mouth, thrusting sloppily past his teeth.

It’s hard to breathe, and even harder to think. For a moment, Cas gives in. His hand comes up of its own accord to settle against Dean’s jaw, and he kisses back. Dean tastes like cheap beer and smells like sweat and sunscreen, and Cas wants to lose himself in him.

Then their conversation prior to this manic kiss starts to creep in and color his thoughts, and Cas knows what this is all about.

_I can never pay you back..._

_What’s your poison? Missionary, right?_

“Wait.” He rips back, and their lips make a faint smacking sound as they’re pulled apart. Someone is whistling at them from across the bar. “Hold on, wait.”

Dean’s brow furrows, and he wobbles a little as he leans back to sit on his own barstool.

“I thought you wanted me,” he says, confused and out of it. Cas thinks, _you’re all I want_. He says nothing. Dean sways. “Benny said—”

Cas is going to kill Benny. “Dean, you’re drunk.”

Dean shrugs, lop-sided and careless. “Drunk and fun,” he slurs, and his hand tries to find Cas’s knee. He misses. “C’mon, I know you wanna.”

“Not like this.” Cas closes his eyes, prays for strength. “Maybe when you’re sober...”

As if this would happen when Dean is sober. As if this would ever happen at a time when Dean’s defenses are up and functioning. All these years of friendship, and he still feels like he owes Cas sex for his life.

“No,” Dean says, and nothing else, and that seals the deal. Cas sends a quick text to Sam — _Please come pick up your brother. We’re at The Roadhouse. _— and catches Benny’s eye again. There’s nothing but pity in the burly Cajun’s face as he starts to make his way toward their table.

“Take care of him for me,” Cas says once Benny reaches them. “I have to go.”

“Hey, Cas!” Dean calls out from behind him, but Cas loses whatever he might say next to the twang of the guitar on the speaker and the swell of voices at the bar.

**July 7**

They’re lying in Cas’s bed, bodies curved toward each other like parentheses.

They’d made out on the floor of the living room for an indeterminate amount of time before Cas’s eyes caught on the blank wall where Meg’s picture once was. Dean noticed. He knew, and he caught Cas’s hand and dragged him up and away.

There’s nothing left of her in the bedroom, either. Her deep red comforter is in storage with the rest of the pictures and her clothes and jewelry, and he sold the vanity mirror where she’d do her makeup every morning. Yet Cas still feels the weight of her memory, and he knows Dean can tell.

Maybe that’s why they’ve just talked, hands grasped and noses inches apart, instead of swallowing each other whole the way they both want to.

Dean traces an unconscious line around Cas’s ring finger. He keeps blinking, eyes heavy. It’s getting late, past midnight. Cas made him stay. They don't know who they can trust, and he can't let Dean go now, anyway.

“I’ve felt guilty for years, you know,” Dean says softly. They’ve been talking about other things — their feelings for each other, their lives apart, their fondest memories — but they can’t avoid the case that tore them apart and brought them back together forever. “About Meg.”

“Me too.” He whispers it, half into the wrinkled sheets.

“I tried to save her.”

“I know. That’s more than I could say.”

Dean rubs a thumb along the back of Cas’s hand. “What did she say to you that night? She told me before we went in you two were through, but I didn’t have much time to process it.”

Cas can’t look him in the eyes. “She asked me if I was going to try to talk her out of it again. If I would like the plan better if she let you be the bait instead. When I didn’t answer, she— She didn’t take it well. She threw the ring at me.”

“Cas,” Dean says quietly after a beat of silence, taking that in. “I have to tell you something else.”

“What?”

Dean’s hand tightens around his. “When the Convert killed Sister Mathias, I told you I thought he might have an inside man.”

“I remember.” Cas had been as reluctant to listen to the theory as Dean had been to share it. Some of the Convert's kills were just different enough, a bit sloppier than others, for a two-killer theory to make sense, but Cas couldn’t stand the thought that the Convert might have an ally on the force.

“I thought Meg was the inside man.”

“Oh.” Cas’s mouth goes dry, and he can’t say anything else.

“She just swept into the precinct one day, and it seemed like she could sweet talk her way into anything she wanted — shifts, cases...” Dean closes his eyes. “And when she got you, too, I kind of lost it. The kills started the same time she moved here, she’d put herself in a prime position to observe our progress on the case, she was wicked smart — it made sense. But really, I just hated her for all of it. For getting you.”

Cas thinks of Meg, dark hair a mess, red-painted fingernail pointed at his face. _You never notice me, never choose me! It’s always Dean, Dean, Dean. You’ll never be over Pretty Boy Detective Genius, and I am done playing second fiddle._

“I’m sorry,” Dean says. “When she volunteered to go with me, I thought we were either going to trap him, or I was going to trap her. And I was completely wrong.”

Meg was a lot of things — brash, haughty, even cruel at times — but Cas never once considered the possibility Dean just laid out before him. How would he have reacted if Dean had told him this three years ago? Would it have changed anything? Would it have further ruined his relationship with her? Would it have kept her alive? The what ifs have teeth and claws, poised to attack.

“I was a jealous asshole,” Dean admits, “and I’ll carry that with me till the day I die.”

Cas wants to tell Dean not to, to put down some of that burden or to let him carry it, too. Instead he says, “She knew. She died knowing I loved you more, and that’s what I’ll carry with me.”

They fall asleep, uneasy, still holding hands.

///

Cas wakes with his phone ringing and his arm around Dean, who’s sleeping soundly. He tries to dislodge himself quietly — sometime in the night they ended up spooning, and Dean is halfway on top of one of his arms. He’s unsuccessful. Dean swats at Cas half-heartedly as he jostles him awake.

“Who the fuck is that?”

Cas shushes him. “The office.”

“It’s six a.m.,” Dean complains.

“And I’m the sheriff. It’s all part of the job.” Cas puts the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

“Sheriff.” It’s Benny, his voice tense. “Winchester is still with you, right?”

“How did you—”

“You know some of the boys have been keeping on eye on him since the attack, just to play it safe. I know he went to your place last night. Tell me he’s still there.”

“He is.” Dean raises his eyebrows in a silent question. “What’s wrong?”

“They found another body the next county over,” Benny says grimly. “A woman named Pamela Barnes. She had a card — Lucy, saint of vision healing — on her chest. Her eyes were missing.”

Cas’s stomach drops. He can guess whose eyes they once were. “Fuck.”

“Y’all worked up enough people that now we’ve got the Rangers and the FBI calling in. All they needed was one more fucking victim to finally decide we’ve got another serial killer on our hands.”

“I’ll be at the office in thirty minutes,” Cas says, already out of bed and searching for his clothes.

“Bring Winchester,” Benny tells him, and Cas glances at Dean, still on the bed, ruffled and confused. “They left a message this time, written on the back of the card — ‘He’s next.’”

“We’re coming right now.” Cas turns to Dean. “Get dressed.”

Dean, spurred by the urgency in his voice, hops out of bed and starts to pull on his discarded pants. “Cas,” he begins, only to be interrupted by a quick, sharp knock at the bedroom door.

Before Cas can reach for his gun, it swings open.

“Hello, Clarence, Dean-o.” The ghost of Meg Masters smiles at him, lips stained red like blood. “Did you boys miss me?”

**Three Years Ago**

Cas can’t believe he agreed to this.

His fiancée and his best friend are currently huddled in an abandoned church, waiting for a serial killer, and Cas is in a van a block over, listening over the wire. Useless.

Dean’s been in the building the longest. He entered this morning, scoped out the floor plan, and set up in a confessional booth just inside the sanctuary. He’s armed with the perfect view of Meg’s position, sitting alone in the center of the room.

Cas is trying not to dwell on why he let Meg be the bait when Dean volunteered to take her place.

Benny and the deputies are staked out in surrounding buildings, waiting for the Convert, waiting to make sure their friends make it out all right. They’re all just as useless as Cas is.

He can hear rustling as either Meg or Dean shifts in position. They’ve been silent for hours. Poised and ready, like the professionals they are. That should bring Cas comfort. It doesn’t.

“I have eyes on someone.” It’s Benny, watching from the church from across the street. “Tall, appears to be male, wearing all black. Going around the west side. I’m losing him. Dean? Meg?”

“Copy.” It’s Dean, followed immediately by Meg. “Copy.”

Silence. Then —

A door creaks.

“Hello.” Meg says, and her voice is loud, confident. She can hide her fear like no one’s business, and for a moment Cas forgets to be afraid for her. He’s just proud of her. “I knew you would come.”

No response. Cas waits, heart in his throat. They can’t make a move until they have something actionable, but he’s got his foot on the gas pedal and his hands on the wheel.

“Hey—” Meg starts, and the sound of pounding footsteps fills Cas’s ears. “Stop! Police!”

“Fuck.” It’s Dean. Before Cas has any time to try and process what’s happening, he hears the rustle of clothes and the sound of another door opening. “He’s running to the basement. All units, we need backup.”

Cas guns it.

He has the church in sight when Meg says, “What the hell?!” and there’s an odd splashing sound. Then she grunts, lets out a shout, and there’s another splash. Her mike pops. Dean is a few beats behind her, and Cas hears him yell, “Get off her!” More splashing.

Cas hears his own heartbeat in his ears as he throws the van into park right in front of the church, leaving it running as he races into the building. Benny and Garth aren’t far behind, converging on his position as they dart through the sanctuary, weapons drawn.

Meg screams, and Cas hears it over the wire and in person. There’s a buzzing sound, and a pop as Dean’s mike blows, too.

He runs toward the basement.

///

Later, Dean will tell the Rangers that Spence led them into the basement, which was flooded with four inches of standing water. He will tell them that when he caught up to Meg, Spence was holding her face down in the water, kneeling on her back. Dean will describe tackling the killer and being thrown to the ground, trying to wrestle his way out of his hold to get to Meg. Spence punched him in the jaw twice, temporarily stunning him. When he reoriented himself, Dean was lying in the water, staring down a taser. Spence shot it at them.

He won’t remember what happened after that, but Cas will.

He will remember reaching the basement first and seeing Spence, standing on a rotting pew, still buzzing taser in his hand and vicious smile on his face. He will remember Dean and Meg, face down in the water, unconscious. He will remember shooting Spence in the chest — two shots, straight and true.

He will remember that he pulled Dean up first and then went back for Meg, and he will remember the fear and the anguish when he realized neither of them had heartbeats, and the blur of the medics and the ambulance and the hospital.

He’ll remember the doctor pushing him away from the ER as Meg died, and Sam telling him she’d given Dean a chance to live.

It’s morbidly ironic, Cas will think later, as he drinks his sorrows away alone — Meg accused him of giving his heart to Dean, and in the end she gave him hers.

**July 7**

“Son of a—”

Meg cocks the gun in her hand and points it directly at Dean’s head. He freezes halfway to the nightstand. Cas is already stuck in place, staring at his former fiancée, back from the dead.

“Slow down cowboy,” Meg says in an effected drawl. “Either of you reaches for the Beretta I know Cas keeps in that drawer, the other one gets shot. And you know I’m good with a gun.”

“You crazy—” Meg points the gun at Cas now, and Dean falls silent.

“Both of you are going to sit on the bed and be good,” she says, “or I take out Cas’s heart. I don’t have another one to spare this time — and Clarence? Drop the phone.”

They follow her directions, sitting stiffly on the edge of the mattress. Meg watches them, leaning against the far wall.

“You changed the place up,” she says, her eyes roaming over the new sheets and the picture-less walls.

Cas feels as though his throat is coming unglued. All he can say is “How?”

“Would you believe me if I said evil twin?” Meg runs one hand through her hair, now cropped short and blonde.

“No,” Dean snarls as Cas says, “I saw you— I held you before the medics came...”

Meg rolls her eyes. “I’m sure you think you did. But evil twin is actually the correct answer this time. You were clinging to my sister, Ruby.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? You really expect us to buy that?” Dean snaps, and Meg waves her gun in his direction.

“Shut up buck-o, it’s story time. See, once upon a time, there were these siblings — two twin girls with a very special connection. But these siblings had a hard life, with mean, terrible parents who used God and the Bible to punish their wicked, wicked children.” Meg touches her neck, where she used to wear a cross necklace. Cas caught her staring at it in the mirror more than once, an odd look on her face. “Eventually the girls were taken away from their cruel parents and split into different homes, but they never forgot each other. When the twins grew up, they found each other again, and they realized they had a lot in common — like wanting to kill those good, rule-abiding Christians that looked the other way when their parents beat them. So they made a plan, and recruited an idiot named Tom to be like their brother — to help with the heavy lifting.”

“You went to Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow as kids,” Dean says, point blank and combative. Cas’s heading is spinning so much he's barely following the conversation. “The first victims went to church with your parents.”

“Mmmhmm.” Meg winks. “Ah, Dean. See, this is why we had to try to kill you. You’d finally picked out the connection. It was only a matter of time before you found some old directory with my name it. Sure, the last name wasn’t Masters back then, but you’re smarter than you look. And I know you already suspected me.”

“For damn good reason, apparently.”

Cas feels as if he’s underwater, struggling to come up for air. “How often was it you?” he asks, thinking of every date and every kiss, the ecstatic look on her face when he proposed — all a lie, all set up to put them in a prime position to murder unchecked.

“Oh, honey.” Her sympathy is cloying and fake. “I actually did go to school to be a cop — they get away with it easier. Most of the time it was me. Ruby preferred the background, the planning and scheming, to the action.”

“Then why was it Ruby in the church that night?” Dean asks.

A dark frown comes over Meg’s face.

“She said I’d been compromised. That I cared too much about Clarence.” Her nose screws up in disgust, and Cas wonders if it’s real or put-on. “She may have been right. It was her idea to lead Dean there and kill him, get him out of the way. I knew everything about the set-up, of course — just like when we killed sweet Sister Mathias. So it should have been easy. She’d go in as me and bring Dean to Tom, then she’d kill them both — two birds with one stone, as it were — and we’d get out of town. Lie low for a while.”

“You’d kill your own accomplice?” Cas doesn’t know why this of all things shocks him.

“Yes.” Her answer is fierce. “He was dead weight. Sloppy. Useless for anything but a scapegoat. It’s because of him Dean even worked out that there might be more than one of us. It’s not like there’d be anybody to miss him. Ruby thought if we killed him we’d have time to get out of the country before someone could put it all together.”

“Yeah, well, Tom sure shit the bed on that end,” Dean says mockingly. “Tasered poor Ruby, too.”

Meg is across the room in a second, slapping Dean viciously across the face.

“Shut up,” she hisses. “You killed her just as much as he did. It should have been you who went into that basement first, but no!” Meg turns to Cas, eyes full of hatred. “Ruby was right about you — you only cared about him. You sent your own fiancée ahead of him, straight into a trap.”

“A trap you set,” Cas manages, though his voice sounds weak to his own ears.

“She wasn’t supposed to die,” Meg says, verging on hysterical. “We were going to walk away together! But you took her from me, and worse, you took her body and split it up! You gave part of it to him!”

Her eyes are wild now, darting between them as she takes a card out of her jacket pocket and throws it on the bed. Cas glances down at it from the corner of his eye. _**Dwynwen, Saint of Lovers**_

“You know,” she says, “seven is a holy number in the Bible. She always liked the symbolism, even when I thought it was a bit too much. So, for Ruby—” Meg levels the gun at Dean’s chest. “—on the seventh day of the seventh month, I’m going to take her heart back.”

Cas hears the crack of the gun going off as he lunges for Meg, and there’s a suspended moment where he thinks _this is how I lose him_ before he feels a sharp, stinging pain in his side. They fall to the ground together, Meg trapped underneath him.

He hears Dean’s voice from far away, as if calling for him from down a tunnel. Cas feels relief — _he made it _— and then he passes out.

///

“Hey there, partner.” Cas opens his eyes, groggy and slow. Dean comes into focus right in front of him, a worried furrow in his brow. “How ya feelin’?”

Cas tries to speak, but finds his throat is parched.

“Ah, shit,” Dean says, and he turns and speaks to someone Cas can’t see. “Hey, he’s awake now. Can we get some ice chips or something?”

A woman in scrubs comes over with a plastic cup, and Cas blinks at her, realization slowly dawning as she murmurs something about checking his vitals.

_Oh. I’ve been shot. Meg shot_ _me. Meg is alive, and she shot me._

Dean pops an ice chip in Cas’s mouth as the nurse asks him yes and no questions — do you feel any pain in your abdomen, do you remember what happened — and he nods and shakes his head until he finds his voice.

“I feel like I’ve been shot,” he manages to say, scratchy and rough. There’s a general throbbing pain in his side.

The nurse raises her eyebrows. “Well, for someone who was indeed shot and went into shock, you’re looking remarkably good. Vitals are strong. Let me go track down a doctor.” She leaves the room, scrubs swishing as she walks.

Dean waits until she’s gone, then says, “Jesus, Cas, you scared me. If Benny hadn’t heard Meg over your call, I don’t know what would have happened.”

“Benny?” It hurts to talk too much.

“Yeah, you were still on the phone with him when she burst in. That’s why I kept asking her questions, trying to waste time — villains love to monologue, man. Benny got there with the cavalry right after she shot you. He helped me arrest her.” He frowns, and Cas tries to reach for his hand. Dean takes it, says, “She was aiming for me. Why’d you have to jump in the way, you stupid bastard?”

“I love you,” Cas says simply, and Dean bows his head for a moment before leaning down to kiss Cas's hand.

“I love you, too,” he says, still bent over. Cas watches a tear leak out of the corner of his eye. “Fuck. Maybe we can stop almost dying on each other now, okay? I wanted to catch the Convert killer, but not like this.” He looks up at Cas. “Are you— How are you doing, like emotionally?”

Cas tries to shrug, but it pulls at the stitches where the doctors took the bullet out. He winces. “Uh, I suppose I’m still shocked.”

“I’m sorry,” Dean says. “I know I thought she might have been involved, but I wish I was wrong.”

“I think I’m just angry.” Cas watches a tear drip from Dean’s chin. “I wasted so much time, blaming you and blaming myself, when she was playing us both all along.” He pauses, giving himself a moment to breathe. “I don’t want to think about her anymore. No more time wasted on her.”

“After the inevitable murder trial, I agree,” Dean says. He gently squeezes Cas’s hand. “It might be a little hard, though. I still have her sister’s heart in my chest.” He grimaces and rubs at his chest. "A murderer's heart."

“It’s yours now,” Cas says, voice as strong as he can make it, “and any heart of yours is a good one.” He eyes the slight bump under Dean’s t-shirt.

“They’re monitoring me again. You know Jess, Sam’s new wife? She saw me panicking out in the waiting room earlier and kind of insisted.” Dean taps the monitor. “Still ticking for now.”

“You know,” Cas says, “someone once lived for thirty-three years after a heart transplant.”

Dean lifts his eyebrows. “Oh really?”

“Yes. I looked it up after your transplant. I would think that thirty years from now medical science will have advanced far enough to exceed that by quite a bit.”

The corner of Dean’s mouth rises in a crooked smile. “You planning on extending my lifespan, Cas?”

“I took a bullet for you, Dean. I insist you grow very, very old with me. If anyone can stay alive by sheer stubbornness alone, it’s you.” He tangles their fingers together, ignores the pain he's in. “This is our second chance. I intend to make the most of it.”  
  
Dean smiles wider. “More like third or fourth, I think. You just keep saving my life.” He leans over and kisses Cas gently on the lips. Cas listens as his own heart monitor starts to beep louder before Dean pulls away. “But I agree. No more wasted time.”

He touches Cas’s face gently, and Cas looks at the man who’s always owned his heart as Dean says, “I’m definitely gonna grow old with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> ...when else can you do evil twins if not in a Harlequin challenge?
> 
> Thanks for reading this soapy, soppy drama. I love y'all as much as I love Dean and Cas (that's a lot).


End file.
